Teeny Foods, Inc. operates on a different scale from the company that was founded nearly 40 years ago by Sam and Minerva Teeny. The Portland, Ore.-based bakery makes a variety of par-baked dough products, including pizza crusts, breadsticks and Focaccia bread. Pocket bread, the company's signature product, has remained primarily a regional favorite in the Pacific Northwest, but its par-baked pizza crusts and breadsticks have introduced the Teeny name to restaurant chains and customers nation-wide, according to Rick Teeny, the company's current owner.

And Teeny Foods is on its way to expanding its capacity threefold in the next few months to accommodate a new segment of the frozen specialty baked-goods market: cheese-filled breadsticks. According to Mr. Teeny, the scope of the company has broadened considerably since April 1964, when Sam and Minerva launched a family business called Middle East Bakeries, Inc. in an old bank building in Portland.

Sam, Mr. Teeny's father, was born in Portland but raised in Lebanon from the age of 2. He moved to Portland as a teenager, then at age 24 returned to Lebanon, married Minerva and brought her back to Oregon.

According to the family story, the impetus for the bakery originated on a hunting trip in 1963, when Sam shared some of his wife's "Lebanese Bread" with his hunting buddies. The hunters were so impressed with the pocket bread they encouraged Sam and Minerva to open a bakery.

"Friends were raving about the quality of mom's pocket bread," Mr. Teeny said. "Dad found out that it wasn't being made commercially and decided we better start making it."

According to Mr. Teeny, his father, Sam, coined the term "pocket bread" and modified his wife's recipe to suit the American palate and lifestyle. Since there was no existing commercial technique or equipment for making pocket bread in 1964, Sam Teeny ended up inventing, developing and manufacturing most of his own machinery, the company said.

The Teeny's educated the public about the uses of pocket bread by selling sandwiches out of a sandwich shop at the bakery and by providing samples to local grocery stores. The concept was a tremendous success with consumers.

In 1980, the company began to manufacture a full line of par-baked frozen pizza crusts, and today, Teeny Foods produces more than 200 varieties of pizza crust. Two of Sam's sons, Rick and Parry, bought the business from their parents in 1988.

In 1996, Rick and his wife, Debbie, bought the business from Parry and moved Teeny Foods to a new 25,000-square-foot facility near the Portland airport. In addition to the increased space for production and freezer storage, the new facility offers a retail outlet where the public can buy Teeny Foods' products as well as a variety of bread, grains and specialty items from other local companies, Mr. Teeny said.

The company's expanded product line now includes not only fresh pocket bread and flat bread (Greek Pita), but par-baked pizza crusts, breadsticks and focaccia bread for food service as well.

"It took five years from the time we started making par-baked pizza crusts until it became a majority of our business," Mr. Teeny said. What started as a pocket bread business and grew into a par-baked pizza crust operation is now looking at a potential shift to a new primary product. Teeny Foods' newest development is a par-baked frozen mozzarella cheese-filled breadstick.

"The cheese-filled breadstick is definitely our newest exciting product as a company," Mr. Teeny said. "I think inside the 20-month expansion plan, the cheese-filled breadstick line could account for 50% of production. We're not really replacing any segments. We're very encouraged. Breadstick growth could be bigger than our whole company." The product was slated to begin shipping sometime in September.

According to Mr. Teeny, the biggest challenge facing Teeny Foods is demand that continues to outpace the company's current production levels. "It's a nice problem to have," he said.

The focus of the company has shifted since Teeny Foods pioneered the pocket bread industry in the 1960s. If the company's area of specialization can be pinpointed in 2001, it is "hands-on product development" with its customers, particularly in par-baked pizza crusts and breadsticks, according to Mr. Teeny.

"When the customers ask for a specific solution and help, we really try to address it," Mr. Teeny said. "We don't just hand them a product list and tell them: 'This is what we make.' We specialize it to their needs. We encourage customer visits and try to bring the right people in from specialty restaurant chains to develop products for them."

Mr. Teeny said the biggest growth opportunity is working directly with its customers to create unique recipes for individual restaurants. Mr. Teeny said that type of personal, custom work is where the company is headed. "We're knocking on some big doors," he said.

The company currently operates one line that runs 4,500 lbs of dough per hour and has expansion plans to increase that capacity to three lines, each running at 9,000 lbs per hours. Teeny Foods plans to add one new piece of equipment every size weeks, Mr. Teeny said, which will quickly bring the company from one production line to three. Admitting that the expansion plan was "very aggressive", Mr. Teeny added that the demand for the company's frozen par-baked specialty formulation products was "huge."

According to Darryl Abram, general manager and vice-president of sales for Teeny Foods, the company is spending more money and more time to automate its operations. "Mr. Teeny is spending more of his own time looking for new equipment to keep the facility updated with the most computerized machines," Mr. Abram said. "There is always something on the automation side that is bigger, fast, better," he said. "New equipment has a life span as short as three years in some cases now."

Mr. Abram said that Mr. Teeny's attitude of openness to new technology and automation makes a difference in overall success of the company. "That's the one thing people notice about us," Mr. Abram said. "As a company, we're open to new ideas. Some small companies are protectionists, but we want to work with our vendors and our customers so they begin to see it as their plant, too."

The plant is not the only variable in the company's rapid growth, according to Mr. Abram. "Labor is changing, too," he said. "There's no doubt about that. We need to be busy training more employees to be better all-around employees in terms of education, computerization and automation. We have been growing the company dramatically, but we really don't see raising our employee numbers very much at all. The equipment manufacturers are helping with that."

Looking ahead, Teeny Foods' strategy for continued growth is to increase its recognition across the United States. "We were a well-kept secret until a few years ago," Mr. Abram said. "Then we decided to dramatically grow the business needed to step outside the Pacific Northwest and go to trade shows."

Although it is well-known in the Pacific Northwest, the Teeny name is less recognized across the nation, and that is something the company is determined to change. According to Mr. Abram, with substantial business in custom formulations for national restaurant chains, "our strategy is to raise our profile nationwide."